Arden Levine: “My father (a native Manhattanite) would often remark that the city was on its best behavior just before dawn. He once took a photo of my mother (born in the Bronx, raised in Queens) in the center of the West Side Highway at first light, and not a single car blurred the periphery of the image. Forty years later, from my apartment above Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, the sound of the rare truck passing at 5:00 a.m. has the quality of a shallow tidal stroke. I listen to the boisterous poetry in the city’s daily din, but I tune in most closely to the subdued poetry in its morning reverie.”

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